Track suspension setup

[StingertimeNC]

I’m doing the Trackdaze event October 31, November 1. It’s like 650 bucks for both days, and you get the grand course day one. I don’t think I can swing both events. Trackdaze is just so good on price and I’ve always had a great time.

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[StingertimeNC]

Oh, one more thing I wanted to throw in, I do believe you don’t need the intercooler for the track. It may help with achieving Max power on the street, but blocking the radiator is not the way to go.

 

[NoVA_Teggy]

I’m doing the Trackdaze event October 31, November 1. It’s like 650 bucks for both days, and you get the grand course day one. I don’t think I can swing both events. Trackdaze is just so good on price and I’ve always had a great time.

I think I may be able to swing both if my work schedule permits. I'll make a separate thread for both events to see if we can garner some interest. The Trackdaze event should be a good one, and the weather will likely be better since it's late October.

 

[optronix]

Lots of good discussion here and I'm soaking it all in. btrip, awesome that you were able to get your car dialed in!

For the east coast guys, if we can get enough of us together, I'd love to put something together for a track event. We could crash Ken Kirkham's Track Days at VIR in October. If the price remains the same as Road Atlanta, it'll be $475/day and no requirement to attend both days. I for sure will be there, but if others are interested, I say let's do it.

I think I've all but forsaken the thought of driving out to VIR... but either Summit or Dominion (in Richmond/Spotsylvania) are both within easy driving distance.

I actually don't have any plans for a track event this summer; this is "the year of autocross" for me as I transition into getting some of the moderate track-focused mods I plan on doing to the car... mostly tires. I want to eke what I can out of these Michelin PS4S before splurging on some 200 TW tires next spring. I was planning on squeezing a bit more camber out of it too... pads and fluid... and maybe an intake and/or exhaust. That's about all I have planned for this one.

Getting closer to fall though I think the bug may bite again and I'll just lock in to whatever event makes the most sense. The Track Night in America at Domnion I did last year was a good time, and I think was super reasonable cost-wise... ~$250-300 if I recall correctly? Dominion is no VIR, but it's also very easy on the degree of difficulty scale relative to VIR, and I had an absolute blast and felt like I was able to extract most of what the car is capable of in a pretty casual way.

I also haven't done a full lap on Summit in quite some time... 2017 actually IIRC, in my F82 M4. Since then I've just done autocross/trackcross... I wouldn't mind revisiting Summit in the fall either.

 

[btrip]

Great info. I'm going to max out my camber joints and see how much that gets me. Should be at least -4. I might also go back to the 10kg rear spring. FF needs all the help it can get to turn lol.

I think equal spring rates on front and rear will always give this car a tendency to understeer. The car is set up from the factory with a slightly stiffer rear to begin with (4.5 kgf front, 5.0kgf rear) and it still was understeer biased.

Before my alignment, I installed the Whiteline 22mm rear bat set to full stuff and it didn’t help the rotation all that much by itself. It seems you definitely need to go with a much stifffer spring rate in the rear to neutralize the handling, ignoring the help you’ll get from a rear sway bar. Swapping the FL5 damper module also adds another variable, which I hesitate to speculate on without yet having the opportunity to experience how the FL5 damping feels.

Raising rear ride height relative to the front, which a lot of these after market spring kits do, also seems like a plausible option which would in theory load up the front more and allow the rear to naturally be more playful. I’m sure there are many ways to achieve the same result.

I’ll be interested to see what you and Ohlins settle on for the kit. I wish I could work with them like you do to test and tune their coilovers!! If you still have the 7kgf setup on front and rear, my suggestion would be to raise the rear ride height/lower the front, and pre-load the rear spring a bit more (I think that’s possible). You can always add a rear sway bar if you haven’t already and see what that does.

 

[btrip]

Lots of good discussion here and I'm soaking it all in. btrip, awesome that you were able to get your car dialed in!

For the east coast guys, if we can get enough of us together, I'd love to put something together for a track event. We could crash Ken Kirkham's Track Days at VIR in October. If the price remains the same as Road Atlanta, it'll be $475/day and no requirement to attend both days. I for sure will be there, but if others are interested, I say let's do it.

A DE5 track day crash would be epic! There’s a Track Night in America at Pittrace at the end of August. I’ll be doing the SCCA Time Trials there that weekend, and would definitely register for the TNIA also if we can get a few on here to participate. Road Atlanta is a haul for me being in Upstate NY. It seems for the east coasters, meeting somewhere in the middle would be ideal.

https://www.tracknightinamerica.com/events

 

[RamVA]

One can't compare front and rear spring rates on this car. The front is coilover strut and the rears are attached to the LCA. That gives them less leverage so they have to be stiffer, despite the front weight bias.

Equal front-and-back makes little sense to me, whether for street of track. I would start with the bar, but would not be surprised if 5/7k or 5/8k was a better answer (for a street car). Maybe a little more if it's mostly for the track.

 

[btrip]

One can't compare front and rear spring rates on this car. The front is coilover strut and the rears are attached to the LCA. That gives them less leverage so they have to be stiffer, despite the front weight bias.

Equal front-and-back makes little sense to me, whether for street of track. I would start with the bar, but would not be surprised if 5/7k or 5/8k was a better answer (for a street car). Maybe a little more if it's mostly for the track.

Honda/Acura tuned both the FL5 and DE5 to be manageable for the everyday driver on the street. Most people would freak out if they had the car lift-off oversteer on an on ramp, hence the stock spring rates and roll bar stiffness. This is also why the recommended tire pressures are 35 front 33 rear. It’s all about stability. For anyone who wants to track their car and be fast doing so, the car is not set up for it from the factory. Suspension mods are a must.

The question for people like us who do go to the track is how we as individuals like our cars set up. A company like Ohlins has to strike a neutral balance with their coilovers and allow the adjustments for the user to tune in the balance they prefer. To make the car as neutral handling as possible (dialing out the factory understeer) they need to go stiffer in the rear.

Coilovers IMO should be the only suspension mod (outside of camber adjustment) that you need to tune the handling balance if you want to spend that kind of money. That’s a lot to spend, so many of us including myself will do springs and a rear sway bar.

As I found out, simply increasing front camber will do wonders to dial out the understeer. I think the main reason to do springs/coilovers is to reduce squat and body roll, which will give the car more stability turning and braking.

 

[Victorofhavoc]

I'm new to this forum, but I'm a NASA instructor and occasionally a TT driver in my dedicated racecar. I moved from my daily driver vw gti to the its because it's a much better setup car from the factory at a clubsport level (think less than 5 weekends per year and being a street car). This car has a lot going for it! Amazing brake setup from factory, solid LSD, massive rubber stuffing potential, and a very solid dual duty factory alignment potential.

There were quite a few smart things in this thread I'll quickly echo... It's a fwd car so spend more time braking earlier and setting yourself up for the corner. Keep an eye on pressure, and counter to rwd setups you may need the front to have 40psi or more to limit understeer, especially on softer sidewall tires like typical 200tw autox tires. Get an instructor to sit with you!!! If anyone is out in the midwest, I typically rent out a track to myself or with a select (less than 5) group of people a couple times per year to spend all day driving or instructing. If you're in the kc area, hit me up and I can help you get on track safely.

The other thing I'll note is that your line and corner entry has the biggest impact on understeer/oversteer and with the camber this car runs factory you should be able to zero toe out and go into every corner with the rear end hanging out. It's fwd after all, so the rear tossing around is very desired so the front wheels can always point to corner out. Having 4 degrees or more camber up front is something to consider on a 100tw or 60tw slick. On a street tire, you'll lose entry speed and be able to throttle on earlier, but as you move from novice to intermediate or from intermediate to advanced where you start spending a lot more time focusing on brake technique to induce rotation and smooth out power delivery it will lead to frustration on corner entry.

As an example, here's an older video my friend took from his e92 setup (full on track alignment on mcs and every supporting part along the way) with me in my gti (street setup with -2 camber front -1.8 rear, zero toe, slightly stiffer springs, and a rear bar). I like this video as a demo because you can see how much the rear end of the gti moves around and you can see a few times where it picks up a wheel.

To whoever said you ran a 2.12 at VIR on your 4th ever track session (and no autox doesn't translate well), you need to stop what you're doing right now and go to a comp school. That's a professional, successful driver pace. My racecar on a 295/315 Hoosier, aero, titanium spherical ball suspension, 300hp:2900lbs, and proper oiling/fueling can muster a 2.05 there in June. It takes a damn good driver in a zl1 to break 2.00.0 on the full track there on good tires. Even guys running slicks are often in the high 2 teens for club drivers. You have a natural talent to get a 2.12 first time out; the kind of talent that has potential to get to gt driver or even open wheel status...

 

[StingertimeNC]

Seriously on the VIR stuff. That is a really good time. He was running 200 TW tires and had a tune. No idea how much power though. But yeah, really good time. I have a couple buddies running 2:11's, one with a C8 Vette, basically stock but on Cup 2R's, (probably has 15 track days, all at VIR and one with a Camaro SS 1LE, running Like 305 tires, (100 TW.) Has probably 25 track days at VIR.

 

[btrip]

To whoever said you ran a 2.12 at VIR on your 4th ever track session (and no autox doesn't translate well), you need to stop what you're doing right now and go to a comp school. That's a professional, successful driver pace. My racecar on a 295/315 Hoosier, aero, titanium spherical ball suspension, 300hp:2900lbs, and proper oiling/fueling can muster a 2.05 there in June. It takes a damn good driver in a zl1 to break 2.00.0 on the full track there on good tires. Even guys running slicks are often in the high 2 teens for club drivers. You have a natural talent to get a 2.12 first time out; the kind of talent that has potential to get to gt driver or even open wheel status...

That was me. It was my first day on track, 4th session. 13th lap of the day.

I would love to pursue competitive driving further, but I’m 36, married with 2 young kids lol. Someone told me after the event “you missed your calling”

I guess my only hope is for someone to see the potential and sponsor me!!

 

[Victorofhavoc]

That was me. It was my first day on track, 4th session. 13th lap of the day.

I would love to pursue competitive driving further, but I’m 36, married with 2 young kids lol. Someone told me after the event “you missed your calling”

I guess my only hope is for someone to see the potential and sponsor me!!

The vast majority of race drivers out there knew a (truly) wealthy person early on in life and made connections to current/former drivers. The only way to do that is to get out there and do more of it .

I'm 34 now and 2 young ones, and despite being one of the faster drivers in the 3 regions I've driven in, I make too good of a living in my day job to fully commit to racing. That being said, I have quite a few people asking me for setup advice, trying to put me in their cars, and looking for private instruction. I got a lot of attention from driving a little vw gti around faster than a c7 grandsport, 911s, various M3s, and the typical track traffic. People either hated me or loved me for that little gti. On good days I could pass mustang GTs like they were standing still.

All that is a long winded way of saying find an org you like and spend more time out there, even if it's as simple as helping them organizationally when you've got the time. Those who give back find themselves getting the most, and with those kinds of times it would be well worth your time!

 

[FloArm]

PROBLEM SOLVED!

Thanks everyone for your input. After posting been busy installing the ball joints and spent the weekend at Mid-Ohio.

Adding negative camber completely solved my understeer issues. In fact the car was slightly oversteery, which I was able to dial out by lowering rear pressure.

I ended up going with full out on the ball joins which resulted in -4.5. A couple other fwd guys at the track also had camber around -4 for Mid-O.

I was 2nd fastest FWD in street class to an FK8 making a lot more power (+10mph on the straights). My optimal in the Catalyst was 1:35.5 which would have beat the FK8 and been good for a podium and FWD lap record.

I am seriously considering ditching the intercooler after reading up on it more. I didn’t ever hit limp mode but coolant gauge was almost to the top at the end of a couple of the afternoon heats after 5-6 laps.

Integra Type S - 1:37.1 GRIDLIFE Mid-Ohio Meet 6/30/24

How was the ball joint install? Any tips? I have mine sitting on a shelf.

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